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I am looking for a native speaker who could answer the following question:

Is there any difference in pronunciation of the morpheme 'mo' in the following words (are there any differences in tone)?

  • だれも (as in 部屋の中には誰もいませんでした)
  • だれも (as in 誰もが名文を書けるわけではない)
  • だれでも (as in 来る人は誰でも歓迎されます)

Thank you!

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1 Answer 1

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Yes, there is a difference.

  • 部屋の中には[だれも]{LHH}いませんでした。
  • [だれもが]{HLLL}名文を書けるわけではない。
  • 来る人は[だれでも]{HLLL}歓迎されます。 ([だれでも]{LHHH} is also fine, maybe younger speakers prefer this?)

You can try Google Translate's voice synthesizer (click the speaker button). I confirmed the result was fairly good at least in terms of pitch accent, although the English translation is flawed.

I don't know if there is a generic rule which you can apply to other interrogatives. If there is any, I think non-native speakers are better at such rules :)

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  • Thank you. What about just the 'mo' part. How would you describe the tone of 'mo' (rising, falling etc.) in negative senteces, positive sentences (with universal, i.e. 'every-' meaning) and when used as a part of 'demo'?
    – Coobie
    Oct 11, 2018 at 14:40

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